Soap Watching

    

     I hurried up the stairs, taking them two by two and rushed into the bathroom.  "Are you done yet?" I asked in a classic, impatient mother voice. 

     "What do you mean?" responded my dripping wet child. 

     "You were supposed to wash yourself with the soap bar while I was downstairs," I huffed.

     "Oh, well, I didn't wash but I WAS looking at the soap bar while you were gone," she stated.

     I groaned and began to scrub.

     But how often am I just like my child when it comes to God's Word?  I look at the "soap" but do not wash . . .

     It's no different than the verse in James that says we are not just to be hearers of God's Word, but doers also.  If I faithfully take time in the Word each day and study and memorize Scripture but never DO what it says, then I'm just a "soap watcher" and no more.

     God's Word is like soap; if it's going to have any affect in my life, I have to use it and often.  Just looking at it will benefit no one!

      Picture a brand-new bar of exquisite soap from the finest store; then imagine the thrill of it sweet smoothness running over your skin and the perfume filling your senses -- why pass up an opportunity to savour that in our daily lives? 

     Never does, no, never should a day go by that we are not aware of how much we need God's truth to be active in our lives -- not sitting on a shelf as knowledge, but moving and living in us as we go about our day.  May God show each of us how to stop passively watching the "soap", so that we can begin passionately using it. 

"For if you listen to the Word

and don't obey, it is like glancing

at your face in a mirror. 
You see yourself, walk away,

and forget what you look like."

James 1:23&24

Clutter!

     It's like a slow moving disease that spreads throughout our house if ignored -- it's the creeping, crawling chaos of clutter!  With eight of us in one house, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly corners can fill up, but I remain tenaciously bent on ensuring that the clutter doesn't get the upper hand on me.

     No small task, you say?  Then you must have children too!  And although the clutter is just stuff, there is a deeper, more spiritual side to it that has a lesson our children, and ourselves, repetitively need to be reminded of as we go about life -- 

     The lesson of holding our possessions in an open hand.

     A challenge is posed to us in I Timothy 6 that reminds us since we brought nothing into the world and can take nothing out of it ... we are to be generous and willing to share.  My desire is to get to the place where that comes so naturally to our family, that we are able to release extras without thinking about it, which is really the most natural way to deal with clutter anyway.

     There is only one method I require every time I attack a room that requires "healing from clutter" and I try to do it at least 4 times a year (basically with the seasons, but especially in spring and right before Christmas when we know there will be more "stuff" coming into the house).  I take 3 baskets into the area I am focusing on and mentally label them: #1)GARBAGE, #2)DONATE, and #3)SHARE. 

     In basket # 1, I ruthlessly toss everything that is completely unusable and take it immediately to the trash bin (especially before wandering eyes spy a potential item to salvage). 

     In basket # 2, I quickly put all items that have some value to a thrift store but would not benefit anyone we know, bag it immediately and put it right in our vehicle so that it can be dropped off the next time I go out.

 

     In basket # 3, I nicely lay out items that make me think of someone who could use benefit from it -- this is my favourite part of the job because often God will bring to mind a name of a person who could use the items we are ready to part with and it is also much easier to give away what you know someone else may enjoy receiving. 

     The key lesson for our children is also buried in basket # 3 because this is when they will get excited to give away IF there is a vision for where it is going.  You may have a local shelter for troubled moms and their children, or a family whose children are slightly younger than yours . . . regardless, our children will be far more generous (or at least learn to be) if they know someone else will be blessed by their sharing.

     I came across a beautiful poem entitled Let Them Go by Ruth Bell Graham, the other day as I was spring cleaning, and it reminded my heart of what I need to hear . . . 

Let them go --

the things that have

accumulated thru the years.
If they be only things

then

let them go.

As barnacles

they but impede the ship

and slow

it down when it should go

full speed ahead.

Why dread

the disentangling?

Does the snake

regret the shedding

of its skin?

When the butterfly eludes

its chrysalis,

does regret set in?

     The earlier our children learn the joy of sharing, and the sooner we master the ability to live clutter-free in this crazy, cluttered world, the sooner we will be as the ship in Ruth's poem -- able to move full speed ahead and not weighted down by the barnacles of stuff this world tries to attach to us!

"Do not forget to do good

and to share with others, for

with such sacrifices God is pleased."

Hebrews 13:16

Dust Bunny Friendships

     Some days my house reminds me of a hot, dry desert, complete with tumbleweeds rolling by . . . but the problem is that I live in a cold climate and the tumbleweeds are really rolling dust balls.   As hard as I try, our house produces more dust bunnies than I can keep up with - - and I have come to accept that this as part of life, especially at this stage with kids.  

     There was a time that these lifeless critters kept me from friendships that God had called me to embrace, but no more.  I have grown to accept that friendships are more important than clean houses.  And it is not my friendships that have changed, or my house that has changed, but it is me that has changed.

     I have learned to love my dust bunny friendships.

     These are the friendships that weave in and out of our daily lives -- a place where I can pour out and be poured into, like a well-watered garden that flourishes in the warm summer sun.  A place where I choose not to let the state of things around me rob me of the sweet visits or the sumptuous conversations.

     I don't want to become what Rudyard Kipling thought of, when he said, "You sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces over all the mean worry of housekeeping."  

     Life is too short and people are too precious to waste that much time.  My desire is to keep a house that is clean enough to always welcome someone in, but never so clean that it means I won't have time to enjoy my guests.  

     Now go smile at your dust bunnies, and then invite over a friend! 

"Open your homes to each

other without complaining."

I Peter 4:9    

Letting Go of a Clean Stable

I was reading in Proverbs recently and came across a verse that jumped out at me - it was in chapter 14:4 and said, "Without oxen a stable stays clean, but from the strength of oxen comes an abundant harvest." I am not trying to refer to my children as oxen, but what impacted me so much was the reference to a clean stable. That is one of the greatest challenges for me (at least for my orderly personality); to enjoy being home full time with five children while homeschooling - there is never a true break, at least not with enough time to "keep the stable clean". Oh sure, just like the farmer of the oxen we can clean out the pen and put in fresh hay, but be guaranteed, it isn't long until the hay needs cleaning again.

I love what comes next in that verse though - there is a benefit, that I am already beginning to enjoy, that comes from living in a dirty stable...oxen provide an abundant harvest. And so it is with our families too - there is a harvest to be enjoyed when train our children up in God's orderly ways. Our oldest is becoming capable of so much, it amazes me...he is able to pull out a vacuum, clean a toilet, bath his little brother, clean up supper dishes, mow the lawn and the list goes on (not all in one day, of course). And our next child is able to match as almost an equal for chores and jobs that need to be tackled and they are not even in their teen years yet! But more important than skills, are the abilities of the heart; learning to go to another sibling when they have wronged them and make it right, wanting to help someone who doesn't have all that they need, being willing to pitch in and help even when there are things they would rather do - that is when we see the maturity of the heart.

I point this out, not to play up our children's abilities because we still have a long way to go on work ethics and heart issues, but to illustrate a point that I am drawing from Proverbs 14:4. One of the rewards for learning to maintain and enjoy my "stable" and my "oxen" is truly the abundant harvest that we are only starting to see. God's plan for family is so perfectly complete that I think we sometimes fail to see the beauty of the barn, or stable. All that we need for training up our children in the way they should go is found in God's word and He has promised us that when it goes out it will not return void. If we want to see an abundant harvest, then we are the ones who are responsible to sow the seeds - the job was given to us as parents, not anyone else.

James 3:18 says, "Peacemakers (who is a better peacemaker than a mother? - that describes one of the biggest roles in my day) who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." That is what I want in my children; more than education, wealth or position - I want to see a harvest of righteousness rise up in each of them. And we know that when a seed goes into the ground, we have to be patient to see the results.

If we put a cucumber seed in the ground on a Monday, we all know it would be foolish to expect a full grown cucumber to eat by Friday. So it is with raising our children, we cannot see all that God is doing on the inside of each of them, but we can trust that what He has promised will come to pass.

So, while we let go of a clean stable, we work towards that abundant harvest...may we be found to be sowing into their righteousness for Christ's glory and not our own.